Atheists as a majority

Voegelin said:

I imagine you don't like it. But that is the history of the 20th century. Atheist regimes dominated a large part of the world and we know what they did.

Click to expand...

People who are sorely lacking in any actual historical must less political education say that all the time.

Communism isn't an atheist form of goverment.

In communism the goverment is god.

LovesTruth said:

In response to the above, I say, "So what's the problem?" If atheists or Muslims or Orthodox Jews or Bible-believing Christians are the majority, let the majority decide what kind of nation they want and pass laws accordingly.

Click to expand...

The Scientific Paganism link is empty. Dont you check the links before you post?

America is a republic, not a democracy. Majority does not necessarily rule.

Voegelin said:

Yes, we can make a joke about it. But what some atheists have done and are doing right now are facts. An account of atheists persecuting Christians as we speak:

Click to expand...

Is there any particular reason that after 2 months of crying and pulling your hair out that there was a war on christmas that the day after christmas you refused to answer this simple question?

How did the "war on christmas" effect your celebration?

The fact is Voegelin, you are very well known for quite simply MAKING THINGS UP to paint yourself as a martyr.

Please tell us how you are being persecuted.

LovesTruth said:

[SIZE=+1][/SIZE]
1. During the 1988 election campaign, George Bush said that Christians should not be considered patriots or real American citizens.

Click to expand...

Can you verify this statement with some facts?

JustOneWay said:

Can you verify this statement with some facts?

Click to expand...

That whole list is a parody.

Bush was talking about atheists when he said that.

Morcova said:

That whole list is a parody.

Bush was talking about atheists when he said that.

Click to expand...

Yep, in 1987.

"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." - George Bush 1987, Aug. 27 at Chicago's O'Hare airport.

I just watched an interesting segment on CBS Sunday Morning about Mao that interviewed a survivor of the Cultural Revolution and a couple that has written a book about his brutality and depravity. Oddly enough, the segment discussed his cult of personality but not atheism. I guess that's CBS's liberal "secular-progressive" bias showing through.

Morcova said:

People who are sorely lacking in any actual historical must less political education say that all the time.

Communism isn't an atheist form of goverment.

In communism the goverment is god.

Click to expand...

Incorrect. Communism considers a government merely a transitory stage inbetween the economies currently in action and the future communism. Marx's ideal system had no government, a direct consequence of being both classless and stateless. The government he proposed was transitory, in order to establish this system with minimum fuss. The government may have gained the ultimate authority over its people, but philosophically, it was always intended to be temporary.

Communist governments, and communists, whether you like it or not, were atheists. And no matter how you try to "True Scottsman" it away, that's what the philosophy says.

Alarum said:

Communist governments, and communists, whether you like it or not, were atheists. And no matter how you try to "True Scottsman" it away, that's what the philosophy says.

Click to expand...

No, and it is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. All of the Communist governments that manifested in the 20th Century were totalitarian and a misapplication of Marx's theories in the first place (specifically Russia and China were in feudal states economically and thus weren't following the dialectic of economic progression).

The problem I've been pointing out with the OP from the first is that it's not supposing a liberal democracy with the majority of it's citizens being athiest as opposed to any sort of totalitarian political system other than a liberal democracy with a cult of personality leader.

Sycophant said:

I found this on another forum (that I won't link to, as it contains things that aren't cool here). Also, I will edit it for the taste of this forum:

This is what it would be like, if the majority of people were athiests.​

ATHIEST KID: Mom, I'm going to go [have sex with] a hooker.​

ATHIEST MOM: Okay, son.​

ATHIEST KID: Afterwards, I'm going to go smoke pot with my friends, since it's "not addictive."​

ATHIEST MOM: Okay, come home soon!​

The athiest kid leaves the room. The father comes home from work several minutes later.​

ATHIEST DAD: Hey!​

ATHIEST MOM: Hi, honey! I'm pregnant again. I guess I'll just get another abortion, since "fetuses don't count as human life."​

ATHIEST DAD: Okay, get as many abortions as you want!​

ATHIEST MOM: Oh, and don't go in the bedroom.​

ATHIEST DAD: Why not?​

ATHIEST MOM: There are two gay men [making love] in there.​

ATHIEST DAD: Why are they here?​

ATHIEST MOM: I wanted to watch them do it for awhile. They just aren't finished yet.​

ATHIEST DAD: Okay, that's fine with me!​

Suddenly, their neighbor runs into the house.​

ATHIEST NEIGHBOR: Come quick, there's a Christian outside!​

ATHIEST MOM: We'll be right there!​

The athiest couple quickly put on a pair of black robes and hoods. They then exit the house, and run into the street, where a Christian is nailed to a large, wooden X. He is being burned alive. A crowd of athiests stand around him, all wearing black robes and hoods.​

RANDOM ATHIEST: Damn you, Christian! We hate you! We claim to be tolerant of all religions. But we really hate your's! That's because we athiests are hypocritical like that! Die, Christian!​

THE END​

Scary, isn't it?​

So that's it, pretty much verbatim as I found it... I think it's someone legit opinion.

Are there really a lot of people who really think that this would happen if Atheists were the majority, or ran the government?

Click to expand...

I read this post on said forum, too. I haven't read the whole thread, but people have probably done an adequate job of ripping the author to shreds.

That said, Random Atheist is definitely my favorite character.

I want to hang out with ATHEIST KID.

Jacey said:

I want to hang out with ATHEIST KID.

Click to expand...

He sounds a little too hedonistic for my taste in friends.

Sycophant said:

Are there really a lot of people who really think that this would happen if Atheists were the majority, or ran the government?

Click to expand...

I don't know, but most the countries where atheism has been professed by the government, such as the USSR, Communist China, Cambodia, etc, have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for mass killings. Simultaneously, atheist states have been the worst violators of human rights, historically.

KarateCowboy said:

I don't know, but most the countries where atheism has been professed by the government, such as the USSR, Communist China, Cambodia, etc, have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for mass killings. Simultaneously, atheist states have been the worst violators of human rights, historically.

Click to expand...

I really wish I didn't have to repeat myself. (or correct my own muddled post content )

USincognito said:

The problem I've been pointing out with the OP from the first is that it's supposing a liberal democracy with the majority of it's citizens being athiest as opposed to any sort of totalitarian political system or political system, other than a liberal democracy, with a cult of personality leader.

Click to expand...

And no, the worst violators of human rights have tended and tend to be Islamic monarchies, autocracies. At least in Communist totalitarian states (see my quote immediately above) women had some semblence of rights that were/are lacking in those Islamic states.

USincognito said:

I really wish I didn't have to repeat myself.

Click to expand...

And no, the worst violators of human rights have tended and tend to be Islamic monarchies, autocracies. At least in Communist totalitarian states (see my quote immediately above) women had some semblence of rights that were/are lacking in those Islamic states.

Click to expand...

The Islamic monarchies typically affected much smaller groups of people. For example, 40 years ago the population of China was 600 million. Much bigger.

Then I guess we're mincing over the meaning of "worst." Totalitarian states definately have more screwed up policies that ended with people dying (Stalin, Mao and Kim sr./jr.'s famines, political pogroms like the Cultural Revolution and what the Khemer Rouge did in Cambodia, etc.) but I'm referring to day-to-day systemic human rights violations, especially the treatment of women (half the population).

Anyway, I stand by what I've said this whole thread, conflating a liberal democracy with a majority atheist population with any sort of totalitarian or authoritarian regime is incorrect.

Voegelin said:

We can bring up old history too. French Revolution might be a good place to start to educate people on what atheists and "anti-clerics" have done when they gain political power. Hungary in 1919 is a good example too.

Click to expand...

I would say the French Revolution might be a good place to start analysing your claims in details indeed.

What really happened during the french revolution? Was it really atheists taking power and persecuting religious people? This is what your post implies, but it is hardly the truth.

What was targetted during the revolution was the catholic church rather than religion as a whole. Why? Because at that time, the Church was imposing heavy taxes and was also doing his share of persecutions (mainly towards protestants and jews).

The first act of Robespierre was NOT to forbid religion, but to replace catholicism by a kind of deism which was more tolerant of other faiths (protestants and jews mainly). It still recognized the existance of a supreme being, and the population remained overwhelmingly religious anyway.

What was changed is that the Church (that is, the Catholic Church) lost its political power and its "privileges". The Catholic Church, and its priest were persecuted (already a crime in itself), but it actually lead to more freedom of (and from) religion.

To make a long story short: the french revolution didn't lead to an atheistic governement, but rather to a deist (and later secular) governement.

I don't know as much about your other examples, but I would say that the reason for the mass murder they comitted was more political than religious. To be fair, I also think that many of the atrocities attributed to christians (the crusades for example) have also more to do with politics and that religion in some cases was more a tool or a justification than the real motivation behind those acts. Likewise, although some have used religion to justify slavery, I believe the main reason behind it was economic.

Are atheists (or anyone else for that matter) justified in blaming slavery on christianity? I think not. Are they justified to condemn christian institutions for closing their eyes and trying to justify it? Here I'd say yes (and it is my understanding that a majority of christians today also condemn those mistakes). Likewise, I think you're right to blame atheists organizations for approving any mass murder (IIRC you named one such organization in Stalin's USSR), but wrong to blame those mass murders on atheism. Blaming on christianity or atheism mass murders which have nothing to do with those philosophies does nothing but poison the well.

USincognito said:

No, and it is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. All of the Communist governments that manifested in the 20th Century were totalitarian and a misapplication of Marx's theories in the first place (specifically Russia and China were in feudal states economically and thus weren't following the dialectic of economic progression).

Click to expand...

And, in their stated purpose, Atheist. What more of a definition of Atheism do you want than the statement 'we don't believe in God?'

You say its not a "No True Scotsman" because they were all misapplications of Marx's principles. True. Also irrelevent. You don't have to correctly apply Marx's principles to be an Atheist (actually, I'd find it very surprising if someone claimed you have to be a Marxist to be an Atheist). All you have to do is believe that there is no God. They stated they did.

Sure you can say that they 'worshipped the state' or somesuch. At which point you're definately in "No True Scotsman" territory. They're not Atheists because, even though they stated they were Atheists, they didn't act like Atheists are supposed to! Pure Scotsman.